Robert Anton Wilson Week on Boing Boing

(C) frankenstoen @ flickr via Wikipedia

5 years ago, on January 11, 2007, Robert Anton Wilson, author of the epic,  Illuminatus! Trilogy, left this life for the aethyr (and right before I sent out a letter expressing the intent of interviewing him.  Oh Bob…)  As folks with greater achievements had for decades, Bob Wilson inspired much of what this blog is.  One of my most read entries was a biography/tribute I wrote about Bob.

Robert Anton Wilson Day 2010

Update (RAW Day 2010) here is a previous episode of Right Where You Are Sitting Now!, a podcast named after Bob’s book, where RAW’s life and works are paid tribute to.

Today is once again the day designated to an inspiration to this site and myself, Robert Anton Wilson.  Here is the link to all previous Bob entries.  By the way, his site has been updated lately by his family.

Updated: 10-14-2009 Order of Esoteric Research Discussion Annotation Links

KBOO-FM Interview with Robert Anton Wilson by Cliff Walker

In 1990, Cliff Walker conducted an interview with the late Robert Anton Wilson for KB00-FM in Portland, Oregon.  Here is an excerpt.

Walker: The New Inquisition: persecution of scientific inquiry. What prompted you to write this book?

UPDATED: CHROMOSOME DAMAGE! A RANDOM CONVERSATION WITH ROBERT ANTON WILSON

Courtesy of The Frogweb:

JN: In your second volume of autobiography, Cosmic Trigger II, there is a hint of resignation. You say that you would like to be shot into space and listen to Scarlatti. Have you given up on mankind?

RAW: The book was an attempt to present different sides of my personality as they’ve developed in time, and so you get the past mixed up with the present. The past does not always unfold chronologically. It’s the same with ideas – some I held for a long time, some I held for just one afternoon. The book’s an attempt to show that there is no consistent ego. It’s a Buddhist book. So the resignation was just a mood that George Bush Senior put me in around the time of the Gulf War.

Everybody has an area of belief and an area of scepticism –

CSICOP’s dogmas are as rigid as anyone else’s

Green Eggs and Bob?

Editor’s Note: Yesterday, two years ago, on January 11, 2007 at 4;50 AM PST, Robert Anton Wilson left this life.  I wrote some words to remember him by, last year.  Interestingly, Jason Pitzl-Waters, a premiere blogger of the Pagan community reviewed Green Egg Omlet, An Anthology of Art and Articles from the Legendary Pagan Journal, which contained artciles Rev. Bob wrote for the celebrated peridodical.  From reading the review, and gleaming inside the TOC, I think I might get a copy from Borders.  It would look nice next to my copy of Drawing Down the Moon in my bookcase.  What were the first forty years of the modern Pagan movement like? Here is an an excerpt of Pitzl-Waters’ review of this collection from a bygone era.

The print medium is changing irrevocably. Any clear-eyed assessment concerning the state of magazines and newspapers would see a widespread and unforgiving culling taking place. So many magazines are going under that a regularly updated blog has been created to keep track of the carnage, while digital-age pundits predict that the surviving niche publications will soon have to make hard choices about their future. While I’m no futurist, I’ve seen some of these changes coming for some time now, the struggling economy only hastening a transition already underway. It is part of the reason that the bulk of my writing is focused on this blog, rather than in the more “traditional” outlets for a writer/journalist (though I do admit to a certain romantic attachment to being in print, and I currently write for Pagan publications like PanGaia and Thorn).

Given these shake-ups in the world of print, I think it is entirely timely that I recently received a review copy of “Green Egg Omelette: An Anthology of Art and Articles From the Legendary Pagan Journal”. This book, a compliation of excerpts from one of the most influential Pagan magazines ever printed, shows just how vital and necessary the format once was. While books published for Pagans usually stuck to the “101-isms” of Wicca and other Pagan faiths, it was in the magazines that this loose network of Witches, Pagans, magicians, free-thinkers, and philosophers started to communicate, hash out ideas, argue, and push the boundaries of what they knew. It was a place where Pagan filk could rub shoulders with treatises on magic(k) by Robert Anton Wilson, and initial attempts at describing a Pagan theology could have a place next to explorations of polyamory. It is little wonder that even today Green Egg is remembered fondly by almost all who came across it in their journey.

Read more.

YuleTide: Santa Klaus and His Companions #3 – ELVES (and their Kin)

Since the 19th Century, there has been a tradition that elves are little people that work for Santa Klaus (or some mass production food companies) who live inside trees.  Those who are familiar with folklore and fantasy know that is not the always case; in fact, when Lord Dunsany  wrote his celebrated, The King of Elfland’s Daughter, the first modern tale which elves appear, they still live in the legendary Alfheim (of Norse Heathenism, albeit with an Anglicized name), and they are tall enough and capable of mating with humans.    Tolkien, however, would be the one to bring elves into their current level of popularity with The Hobbit (1937), followed by his Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

One of the antecedents of pint sized elfs was the short story, “The Elf of the Rose,” of fabled storyteller Hans Christian Andersen.  In this tale, the namesake elf was in fact the size of a blooming rose and had wings.   In 1933, Snap, Crackle, and Pop made their debuts for Kellog’s Rice Crispies ads.  They were however, originally identified as gnomes.   Note the spellings used in this paragraph; elf aficionados have made a case that the original regular sized are elves, whereas the smaller ones are the “elfish” of the “Elfen race.” The guys clad in green who assist Santa in  making (or in some stories, importing)  are Elfen.  In some traditions, they also works on logistics year round for the Saint’s one-day journey circumnavigating the globe.  According to some folklorists including noted archivist of Scandanavian stories, Viktor Rydberg, they are headquartered somewhere between the Arctic and Lapland, as their are no reindeer for Santa to ride at the Pole itself (more on this at another date), in a secret, may be even camouflaged, village.

The first mention of elves historically is in Norse tales perhaps dating back before the Aesir and Vanir House of Norse Gods.  The Light Elves were said to be tall, eternally youthful, and fairer than even Nordic peoples.  They lived in heavenly Alfheim.  Their cousins, the Dark Elves, however, live in the bowels of the Earth similar to Dwarves.  The last known monarch of the elves was Gandalf, who like his counterpart in Middle Earth, wielded a magic wand to protect his kin.  Humans and Elves can have kids together with the most famous being the Half-Elf sorceress princess of Norse legends, Skuld, being the most notable.  Elves  similar to other preChristian entities were later demonized and thus the term “Little People” today.  They were believed to cause mischief such as replacing human children with their own (though Changelings were more famous for this) to improve their bloodlines.  Modern day philosophers of the metaphysics such as Robert Anton Wilson, note the similarities between alien abductions and the “spiriting away” attributed to “fairy mounds.”  Wilson in fact, classified Mr. Spock, “the little green man” of Star Trek as being of the same archetype as Elves.

Technoccult TV: Antero Alli pt. 2 (updated)

On the latest episode of Technoccult TV, Klintron interviewed Antero Alli on a number of subjects, one of which being Robert Anton Wilson, who inspired Alli’s works, such as AngelTech.

RU Sirius Show #78: Robert Anton Wilson Lives!

Responding to a health scare RAW had in October, his good friend RU Sirius dedicated an episode of his podcast to wish him the best of luck and to tell him what he means to his many readers and supporters.

Show #78: Robert Anton Wilson Lives!

We talk about the great writer/philosopher/prankster Robert Anton Wilson with Lance Bauscher, director of the documentary “Robert Anton Wilson – Maybe Logic” and the force behind the “Maybe Logic Academy.” And we talk to Eric Wagner, author of “An Insider’s Guide to Robert Anton Wilson.” And best of all, Bauscher brought in some reading/performances from the upcoming audio book version of The Illuminatus Trilogy!, which will be released by his Deepleaf Production company.

Don’t forget to vote for us!

The Grid of Circuits One and Two Creates 4 Quadrants

Here is a follow-up to the earlier post on the THE 8-CIRCUIT MODEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS

(C) Robert Anton Wilson

Enjoy~!

Robert Anton Wilson – Everything is Under Control Interview

Thanks to Batty McDougall @ Disinfo

(C) Robert Anton Wilson

Robert Anton Wilson interviewed courtesy of GUBA.

The Devil On The Chimney: A tale of Lovecraftian horror and psycho-archeology

Robert Anton Wilson wrote the following article for gettingit on December 27, 1999.

Nine years ago in Burlington, North Carolina, a group of decent, Christian, hard-working folks who called themselves the Truth Tabernacle Church held a trial featuring the well-known elf Santa Claus as defendant.

They charged Mr. Claus, represented in court by a stuffed dummy, with all sorts of high crimes and misdemeanors. They charged him with paganism. They charged him with perjury for claiming to be Saint Nicholas. They even charged him with encouraging child abuse by appearing in whiskey ads. Worse yet, they found him guilty on all counts, for basically being a jolly old elf — i.e., a pagan god trying to steal Christmas from Christ.

It wasn’t the first time Mr. Claus got the boot from a Christian congregation. Pope John XXIII threw the suspiciously merry old clown out of the Roman Catholic church back in the late 1960s. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have always denounced Santa for his unsavory pagan past. (They also recognized Christmas trees as phallic symbols long before Freud.) Many fundamentalists believe that all pagan gods are basically one false god — the same demon in different disguises — and they think the disguise is thin in the case of this particular elf. It only takes a minor letter switch, they point out, to reveal Santa Claus as SATAN Claus.

I sort of think the fundies have it right for once. Santa not only has an unsavory pagan ancestry but a rather criminal family history all around. Let me Illuminize you…

Read more.